Non-Governmental Organizations and Refugees

"I AM NEITHER HERE NOR THERE"

Almost three million people from the territory of the
former Yugoslavia are either refugees or displaced persons.
Every day they are further from their homes and home
country. There is a true danger of ethnic cleansing thus
being valorized, which was one of the objectives of the war
waged on these territories.

AIM, BELGRADE, November 26, 1997

Non-governmental organizations gathered at the
Regional Conference in Belgrade publicly raised their voices
against all those who deny the refugees the right of return
to their homes and by trading in human destinies reward the
war lords - said the participant of this first Regional
Conference "Non-governmental Organizations and Refugees" in
their Declaration adopted after a two-day meeting held late
last week in Belgrade and organized by the Humanitarian -
Informational and Educational Center for Refugees "Reply".

Efforts exerted by the activists of non-governmental
organizations at promoting and implementing durable
solutions for refugees and displaced persons from the
territory of former Yugoslavia often do not produce desired
results as this process is not endorsed by the political
elites of the newly created states which deliberately and
calculatedly obstruct the most just solution for refugee
problems - mass and organized return of refugees to their
homes.

This was also confirmed by Ankica Mikic from the
Center for Psychological and Social Work in Vukovar, who
pointed out that the Croatian side was not respecting the
provisions of the Erdut Agreement relating to the return of
refugees: "The Croatian signatory publicly stated that the
aim of Croatia is only for the Croats to return to their
homes, and that the document on two-way return was signed
only because of the pressure of the international community.
Our property is given away to the Croats from Vojvodina,
Bosnia and Kosovo".

She corroborated this claim with her own experience.
Namely, although she had applied to the Office four months
ago asking permission to return home to Osijek which,
according to the law, was obliged to reply to her request
within two weeks, she did not receive anything yet. On the
other hand, she recently saw on Osijek TV an auction
organized for the sale of her things and furniture.

Professor Dr.Miodrag Zivanovic vividly described
what was it like in Banjaluka: "As soon as someone raises
the question of the return of families, threats start, and
the local media broadcast morbid programmes frightening
people out of their wits so that the returnees go back to
where they have started from and the new ones do not dare
go. When the Banjaluka TV broadcast the names of six Bosniac
families who wished to return, their houses were razed to
the ground with bulldozers that same night".

"For several years now I have been saying that there
are four constitutive nations in B&H: the Bosniacs, Croats,
Serbs and refugees. The political parties which allegedly
represent their nations, uphold the concept of the return of
refugees only to environments in which they represent the
majority. This is, unfortunately, supported by the
international community which is thereby insisting on the
completion of the process of ethnic cleansing", claimed
Zivanovic and said that it was not surprising the process of
the resettlement of refugees in third countries was much
more intensive than that of their return to their homes: "In
embassies in Belgrade only there are 20,000 requests for
emigration from the RS which represents 100,000, naturally
young and educated people. I am afraid that we shall end up
with a state without people".

Sejfudin Tokic from the "Coalition for the Return"
from Sarajevo, warned that "citizens from this part of Europe
are united in their misfortune, while the ruling oligarchies
are united in their efforts to prevent the return of
refugees and displaced persons". Therefore, according to
Tokic, the priority task of non-governmental organizations
should be the annulment of legal regulations which are in
favour of keeping the status quo, the engagement of the
public and the implementation of endogenous projects for the
return.

Although despair, hopelessness and depravation of
refugees of all rights emanated from many discussions at the
daily panels, one could not but admire the persistence and
enthusiasm of the activists of non-governmental
organizations in assisting refugees to overcome the so
called, invisible effects of the refugee status:
psycho-social assistance, legal protection, work engagement,
helping them to organize themselves.

Along with the thanks expressed to the international
community for the efforts it had exerted and is still
exerting to assist refugees from the territories of the
former Yugoslavia, some proposals and activities were also
criticized, especially those concerning the return of
refugees. Vehid Sehic, from the Tuzla Civil Forum, for
example, pointed out that as much as two thousand families
have returned to Bosnia without the help of the Office of
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, while this
organization "proudly announces to help the return of as
much as 29 families in the next year".

Vehid Sehic also criticized the project of open
cities. He thought that with "the programme of open cities
for the return of refugees, the UNHCR was in violation of
the Dayton Agreement and Annex 7 which explicitly states
that everyone could return, and not only the citizens of
open cities. Instead of proclaiming certain cities open, the
entire Bosnia should be proclaimed open state so that all
its citizens could return, and not be prevented in that by
the nationalistic elites".

Within the Conference a debate was organized on the
problem of refugees and the media. Journalists, participants
in the Conference, from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and
Yugoslavia agreed that the authorities in all parts still
manipulate the refugees through their media, that
state-controlled media in the Republics of former Yugoslav
have contributed to the outbreak of war and ethnic
persecutions, as well as that today they deal with refugees
only when it is in the interest of the ruling elites.

"If there is a profession which should be ashamed of
itself after this war, then it is journalism. It would not
be far fetched to claim that the media have greatly
participated in the creation of the Yugoslav drama. The
journalistic profession has hit the bottom and that is the
most cruel, dirty and tragic experience", said Zrnka Novak
from Zagreb.

Vehid Jahic from Tuzla and Ratko Vlado Aleksic from
Porec disagreed with her concept of the collective guilt of
the profession and pointed out that it was only possible to
speak of the individual guilt of journalists.

"Already in 1990, although I did not change the
system and the state, I gave myself the liberty of being
free. I refuse collective guilt. When speaking of guilt I
would like all of us to behave as citizens and not as
members of a pack of animals. I can only be responsible for
what I, as an individual, have written and signed",
emphasized Aleksic adding: "The refugees are a result of the
policies of these three regimes and the solution lies not in
changing beds or wallpaper in brothels, but in changing
these politicians".

Irrespective of the fact that refugees are no longer
interesting for the media as, as Mirko Vid Mlakar from Split
had put it, "in the refugee camp there are no news, no
sensations which sell the paper, but only years of misery
and desolation", the participants in the discussion pointed
out the importance of journalists dealing as much as
possible with refugee subjects and refusing to give in to
influences of the type - what more do these refugees want -
and not writing about them only when that is "beneficial for
the circulation of their paper" or required by the state
propaganda.

People who have condensed their tragic fate into
the words "I am neither here nor there", more than deserve
that.